Call of Duty Pioneer Review: World War II Heroes: Half hearted

Sledgehammer has been playing for a year and finally brought out the new Call of Duty that was supposed to be released last year.

According to the studio's ranking convention, the new work of Big Hammer was originally scheduled to be released in 2020. Due to a huge disagreement with the developer Raven, Activision decided to let Treyarch take over the blame temporarily and put Raven and Raven together to create "Call of Duty Black Operation Cold War". We don't know what considerations are behind this, both in terms of business and development process. At least from the content we played, "Black Action Cold War" is not a satisfactory CoD work. Especially compared to the "modern war" of the previous year, some of the content is simply a regression.

The previous work released by Hammer, "Call of Duty World War II," was released exactly four years ago, and was also set against the backdrop of World War II. Can the current "Call of Duty Vanguard" (hereinafter referred to as CoDV) meet the expectations of players? I will still start from three modes and talk about my personal feelings about the new New Year's goods.

The Avengers of World War II

Unlike previous World War II CoDs, the story of CodV has more fictional elements. If summarized in a simple sentence, it is "prequel to the Anti German Avengers of World War II.".

The story of the game takes place at the end of World War II, when Hitler was forced into a desperate situation. A First Task Force composed of Allied soldiers was arrested during an infiltration operation, and they discovered the unknown "Phoenix Plan" of the Nazis. They were brutally tortured by Nazi elite interrogators and began telling their own story.

The narrative structure of the Battle of CodV is very innovative, no longer following the chronological progression of the past. Occasionally, a few memorable levels are added, or multiple levels are used to present different theater stories at the same time. Instead, reverse narration is used to lay the groundwork for the plot.

Shortly after the opening, the First Task Force was brutally attacked and arrested, and interrogator Richter was instructed by the leader of the highest group of the Nazi SS, Fran ç niger, to interrogate the captured team members one by one, studying their combat history before joining the special operations team, in an attempt to uncover the Allied understanding and response measures to the Phoenix Plan from his mouth. The true story of the game unfolds from the personal narratives of team members.

The game focuses on depicting the stories of four people, namely Arthur Kingsley (British Army), Polina Petrova (Soviet Army), Lucas Riggs (Australian Army), and Wade Jackson (American Army). Due to different backgrounds, the levels of the four individuals are scattered across most locations in the global war zone.

The game begins with the tense scene of Jason Kingsley and hundreds or even thousands of Allied soldiers skydiving in the rain of enemy anti-aircraft guns; Operated by Wade Jackson, piloting a fighter jet to engage in a fierce battle with the Japanese Zero, diving under the gunfire of an aircraft carrier to bomb Kaga and Akagi, and playing hide and seek with the cunning Japanese in the dense forests of a small island - unfortunately, this plot is a whole block short of the battle in Call of Duty: World of Warfare.

When it comes to the Pacific War level of "World of Warfare," veteran players will definitely think of the Japanese army's "Long Live Charge," hand thunderstorms, and a large number of crazy soldiers hiding in tunnels and trees. But the Japanese soldiers in CoDV, apart from speaking a few sentences of Japanese, describe them relatively mediocrely. They mostly depict the process of colored troops and Wade Jackson going from not liking each other to becoming close friends, but the few sentences did not touch me.

And these Japanese soldiers are all armed with German weapons such as STG-44

On the contrary, the flying snow in the defense of Stalingrad was even more flavorful. In the midst of the ruins, they engaged in a life and death battle with Nazi snipers, single handedly eliminating Nazi elite soldiers and senior generals. Polina Petrova, known as the "Nightingale Lady," can be said to have the most incredible level among the four, after all, in the past, there were only a few CoD protagonists, but there were few stories of one person annihilating a large army. However, Polina Petrova's design inspiration comes from several real Soviet female snipers in history, one of whom is Lyudmila Pavlichenko. She killed 309 enemies during World War II and is known as the "Sniper Witch" or "Deathwoman". It's not a big problem to design the game as a lone hero.

As for Lucas Riggs, who fought against the troops under the Desert Fox Rommel on the North African battlefield, the Battle of Alaman he was in was probably the most boring in the game - I had hoped for a thrilling tank battle, but in the end, he turned into a lone hero infiltrating the enemy's rear and summoning air raids, casually throwing a grenade into the enemy tank and severely damaging the armored units, and the process was smelly and long.

This is also my opinion on the battle mode of CoDV - the overall clearance time is only five or six hours, but the physical gameplay time for each level is very long. In the defense of Stalingrad, in order to highlight Polina Petrova's flexibility, several fixed scenes were set up in these two levels to assassinate enemies and find a way out, and a large number of dog holes were placed for players to drill. I can understand that Lonely Heroes find it difficult to face large numbers of people and horses directly, but the intensity and length of several consecutive battles in the later stage made me think that the developer really intended for me to kill 309 people before I could pass the level

Another obvious case is the Numa Pass, where Wade Jackson searched for his teammates and wasted more than ten minutes shuttling through the jungle and evading Japanese patrols, just to demonstrate his special ability - to discover enemy contours through the wall.

Yes, special abilities are the new system that this campaign focuses on building. Lucas Riggs can carry multiple types of explosives and switch at any time; Polina Petrova was able to drill holes and climb walls, so she set up a large number of climbing walls; Yassen Kingsley can command his subordinates to attack designated targets, which has a good effect on dealing with powerful hunters unique to the battle.

But that's all, only battles have these special abilities. The multiplayer and zombie modes inherit the character, but they don't use this ability system.

Although the level of battle levels varies, CoDV still maintains its character image, at least I am impressed by Polina Petrova's handsomeness and calmness. Thanks to the excellent CG animation of Hammer, the facial expressions of the characters perfectly showcase their personality and mentality, which also allowed me to discover familiar figures in the game, such as Richard Weber from the First Task Force played by actor Simon Quarterman (Western World).

Thanks to a large number of cutscenes, actors have ample time to showcase their acting skills. Unfortunately, the plot of the game itself is "Anti German Heroes", as mentioned earlier, all of which are superheroes who single handedly beat the Nazis. The Nazi side collectively lowered their intelligence, and the most outrageous thing was to lock all members of the special task force in one cell, allowing them to discuss plans to deal with interrogation and find a way out of prison. Whenever we separate and monitor them, or place a guard at the door to monitor them, the protagonist group will interrupt their discussion without any problems.

To me, apart from the final level, all the levels before the battle can be cut in half to make the story more compact, abandoning the long infiltration and running, and even the bridge segments that drill through walls and cracks. Although the length of the battle may seem like only two or three hours, it is at least more comfortable than grinding and repeating battles and stealth. After all, the current campaign mode is more of a satisfying thing for most CoD players, as it provides an appetizer for players to enter multiplayer and zombie mode after a slight understanding of the background, without taking up too much time, especially in situations where the content itself is already mediocre.

If it weren't for the perfect and smooth character switching in the final level, as well as the revelation of the truth and the small surprises brought by connecting other CoD works, I would even suggest that everyone go through the process and start multiplayer mode directly.

Finally, there are no more pit warriors left

The Hammer's multiplayer mode is skilled.

During World War II, it took on the responsibility of bringing the CoD multiplayer mode back to the ground, and it did indeed do so. The groundbreaking division system and strong operational strategies that followed have still made the game one of the most responsive CoD works in recent years.

At present, "CoDV" still has that kind of hammer like vibe, taking care of players with different gameplay needs.

The first release of this game features 20 multiplayer maps, covering scenes where players have fought in battle mode, as well as several fictional maps from other battlefields. The map still adopts a three line design. Personally, I have found that the area of this map is moderate, and you can start fighting within a short distance. When you reach the central position, in addition to a slightly wider area for three line combat, these three lines will also bend at this position, allowing players to predict and prepare in advance for the enemy's appearance, without being exposed to cross fire.

By reasonably setting the positions of door panels, windows, and destructible walls, it is difficult for this game to encounter the situation where players with ten windows need to be cautious while walking on the road in "Modern War". Moreover, because explosives have become more powerful (although not as strong as "Modern War"), the explosive gameplay can effectively counter checkpoints.

To some extent, the multiplayer mode construction in this game has been homogenized due to Warzone. The division headquarters system and dedicated activity hall of World War II have been replaced by three Perks with 10 firearm accessories, separating magazines and ammunition. The design of limited equipment capacity such as the old CoD Pick 10 and 8 out of 5 modern war accessories has been abolished, allowing players to more freely master the performance combination of firearms and Perks, providing satisfactory equipment configuration solutions for adapting to charging, blasting, and checkpoint gameplay.

At the same time, the Perk in CoDV has also been adjusted in terms of functionality, with a more balanced design approach and more freedom in pairing, making it less prone to getting stuck in rigid thinking. There are no special or unnecessary weak Perks, making it suitable for different needs of Perk pairing. For example, the Perk (undetectable by UAVs, etc.) continues the practice of being activated while moving and ineffective when stationary during the Cold War, allowing squat warriors to once again have nowhere to hide (in modern warfare, even standing still can lead to invisibility, resulting in more than half of the game being squat warriors).

There was also the "ninja" Perk that did not appear in the test, and Hammer fully adopted the opinions of the player community and brought this Perk back in the official version.

Hammer also listed on its official website the optimizations of the official multiplayer mode compared to the beta test - increasing foot sounds, reducing the frequency of announcers speaking, reducing texture flicker (which has not been fixed yet), and reducing the effective kill distance of submachine guns, pistols, and shotguns. It can be seen that Hammer has always listened to effective suggestions from players and made corrections.

Of course, sometimes corrections may not necessarily be entirely beneficial. The killing range of shotguns has become shorter, but due to the increase in damage, almost half of the people now choose to bring shotguns to the field when encountering close range intense maps such as the "White House Training Ground" and "Empire Hotel". Of course, this is also because the current version of shotguns has a bug - the original number of bullets has been determined to be area damage, and as long as it hits the enemy within the area, it will hit all the bullets on the enemy, and the damage will become more closely related to distance. Combined with several accessories such as hot fighting, deer hunting bullets, and bullets, the attack of the shotgun will almost become a full screen judgment, and there will be a bug that almost ignores distance.

Compared to the dominance of shotguns, the sniper rifle still holds a relatively low position in this game. Its lifting speed is extremely low, and to match a configuration that can play Quick Scope, a high weapon level is required to unlock corresponding accessories. However, the weapon upgrade in CoDV is too slow. In the early stage, if there are no effective accessories, it is necessary to prepare for the K/D ratio of the game to drop below 1 when using brush sniper accessories.

With the comprehensive improvement of TTK and TTD in CoDV, the long opening speed of the sniper rifle clearly puts the comfort of weapon use at the level of hell. Therefore, it is difficult to see the experts who play the charge sniper extremely smoothly in battles, and more importantly, the squatters who open the camera and checkpoint in advance.

, cherish me as someone who carries a sniper rifle to the battlefield

Abandoning sniper rifles, precision shooter rifles and assault rifles have become the preferred choice for long-range shooting. If you can ignore the magical history of the Hammer and change your gun, weapons like the STG-44 and SVT, which have gained a large number of fans in testing, will definitely make you feel satisfied. Especially when the TTK becomes shorter and the pace of a battle is extremely fast, choosing a sniper rifle or submachine gun or assault rifle is an obvious answer.

Of course, although the multiplayer mode was really fun this time, the map design and equipment matching were very thoughtful. There are still problems:

The combo reward "mortar" is one of the most disliked rewards for players during the testing phase: throwing an discus depends on the terrain, and they are often killed by enemies because Schr ö dinger's terrain is not suitable. However, in the official version, this virtue is still present. I originally wanted to rush into the enemy stronghold and throw a discus to call for the mortar to die bravely, but I held onto the discus until it was beaten into a honeycomb by the enemy

Still a combo reward, the airdrop transformed from a box into a cylindrical package. When the plane is thrown down, it hits the ground without a parachute and rolls over, making it easy to crush players waiting on the ground. Not to mention, it often rolls directly out of some slightly sloping maps. I have been hit multiple times on the "Jiwotu" map

Rebirth point is also a long-standing issue in testing. In the official version, there will still be a situation where a Spitfire Warrior overwhelms the home. Once reborn, it will flash directly in front of his Spitfire Warrior, and without rebirth protection, it will be a lump of roasted meat. The design of the patrol mode, inexplicably reborn under enemy fire, has not been much improved, which is a bit headache.

Although is not a big problem, the small animation in the final like stage of each game is a bit of a waste of time

Fortunately, these issues can all be fixed through patches. The gameplay of the multiplayer mode in CoDV itself advocates for players to have a good time, unlike the cold war style of esports. Although the SBMM matching mechanism still exists, it is not yet possible to see the electrocardiogram results of the previous round with K/D 5.0 and the next round with K/D 0.5.

Of course, it is difficult for players who are still in the preseason to see through what will happen in the future. Whether the sledgehammer can continue to play well in subsequent operations depends on whether they are attentive. At least now I'm having a lot of fun, not caring about winning or losing K/D.

Ultimate Slam Zombies

The multiplayer mode is done with great care, and the zombie mode "The Source of All Evil" is done perfectly. If you want to say something harsh, it's the ultimate showdown.

The main stage of the story is "Red Star", which is a map directly copied from the multiplayer mode after transforming the Stalingrad level of the battle mode. Players need to resist the siege of a massive number of zombies here and gradually complete the tasks brought by the portal, in order to survive to the next round.

The basic approach is to start a mission and teleport to other areas after almost killing all the enemies in each round. The mission mainly involves continuously killing zombies, escorting light balls to designated locations, and picking up zombie hearts to replenish energy. The teleportation map is also the map that everyone has played poorly in multiplayer modes such as "Red Star" and "Empire Hotel". After completing the mission, you can advance to the next round. In just a few missions, you can open all the maps, which are comparable in size to the "Red Star" in multiplayer mode. There are five types of beverage altars scattered around the map, representing five attributes such as increasing player health, movement speed, and critical strike.

And then it disappeared.

Yes, the current zombie mode has not been decrypted and there is no clear main storyline. Simply holding on and surviving is really tiring. Opening the portal, killing a certain number of zombies and running away is enough to escape, without any sincerity.

If you say it's not fun, inheriting the five drinks from the previous games, sacrificing the heart for buff in the Covenant Altar, and the armor upgrade system from the Cold War are not enough to make people say it's useless. But fans definitely want more than just endless zombies on non original maps. Finding interesting Easter eggs or having more fun gameplay is always more interesting than content that is not as good as semi-finished products. I can't even discuss more things to continue evaluating zombie mode, because there is really too little content to play at the moment. I completely do not recommend turning on zombie mode now, unless you want to finish scrolling through trophies/achievements as soon as possible.

However, these reviews only apply to the zombie content provided by the current game. In December, developers will update more zombie mode tasks, challenges, rewards, and more, perhaps that's when zombie mode can become something to play with.

By the way, this zombie mode was jointly developed by Hammer and T team. T team has not had a good rest since "Black Action 4" in 2018, and took over the "Cold War" in 2020. As a result, another zombie mode will be released in 2021, with almost no rest. The poor performance and incomplete content are also reasons for it.

If you want to ask if CoDV is fun, it must be fun. For a player like me who spends most of my time in multiplayer mode, this game provides me with ample satisfaction and pleasure. With shorter TTK, skill equipment matching, and a map of the underworld, it feels like returning to the CoD battlefield of the PS3/Xbox 360 era.

However, the lack of rhythm control, chaotic plot logic, and severe lack of playable content in zombie mode make it difficult for players who do not primarily focus on multiplayer mode to enjoy the game. Overall, it can only be considered as a semi-finished product, and the issues with the campaign are unlikely to be resolved. We can only hope that future updates can bring the zombie mode back to its rightful level.